Fishing from the shore – Australia

Bribie Island – One Flathead at a time – 19 Nov 2010

I was glad to see that the wind was forecast to turn around to a Southerly over the weekend, but less excited to see it would be blowing 20+ Knots. I decided to get one more fishing session in before that happened, on Friday.

I could not get out there for dawn, but managed to get up to Bribie Island around 9.00 am. There had been a far bit of rain over night and again, the water was fairly murky close to the shore. I only had a few hours available and I was fishing the back half of the run out tide. I tried Whitepatch for a while but I could not raise anything, so I moved down to the muddy/ weedy flats on either side of the old Oyster Jetty, on the mainland side of the Bribie Island Bridge.

I walked south down to the corner, around which sits Sandstone Point. I then turned and started wading north, about waist deep in water, putting in long casts ahead of me. There were lots of small baitschools around and plenty of small sand crabs. I was fishing my favourite GULP 3″ Minnow in the Pearl Watermelon colour on a 1/6th 1 jighead. In this area there is weed everywhere and you have to pull you lure through it from time to time. Your jighead is constantly snagging on the weedy bottom but when you get a solid single thud – you know you are onto a fish. This happened just to the south of the old Oyster Jetty, after about an hour and half. In fact I was just about to give up. The fish took a bit of line in a good, solid initial run. It felt like a reasonable sized fish but as it was swimming with the current, I was not sure. The beach was 40 metres away, but I opted to walk the fish back there, rather than try to grab it in the water. After a slow tow and few more good runs I had it on the muddy sand. It was a healthy 54cm Flathead. As you can see from the pictures – it was only just hooked.

That completed another single fish session. Hopefully, the wind change may make things easier next week.

I am a mad keen fisherman - but I am also a seasick one. So I fish the estuaries, beaches, rocks, bays and rivers of the Queensland and NSW coast - from the shore. I like to fish with soft plastics lures, but I will resort to anything to catch dinner!